Climate change - impact

In the UK, climate change is likely to affect temperatures and the annual pattern of rainfall and extreme weather is predicted to become more common. All these effects are likely to have an impact on animals and plants. These recent projects use UK climate projections (UKCP09 and UKCIP02) to predict the impact of climate change on agricultural production systems and agri-environment schemes.

Vulnerability of UK Agriculture to Extreme Events (Defra project AC0301). Global warming is likely to bring more variable climate with increased probability and magnitude of extreme weather events. Extreme events, such as late spring frost or windstorm, may cause crop failure. Future climate may also increase occurrence of extreme impacts on crops, e.g. weather conditions resulting in substantial reduction in yield and quality (for example severe drought or prolonged soil wetness). Our project aimed to fill the knowledge gaps relating to the occurrence of extreme events, whose frequency and spatial patterns are likely to change as a consequence of climate change, and crop production in the UK.

Climate change impacts and adaptation - a risk based approach (Defra project AC0310). This project identified key stages in annual production systems for target crops or livestock that may be directly or indirectly susceptible (e.g. through pest and disease pressures) to climate variation or weather extremes and assembled findings from individual models to determine overall impact and risk associated with the target systems.

Climate change and biodiversity in agri-environment schemes (Defra project AC0304). This desk study assessed the potential impact of climate change on measures put in place under agri-environment schemes and in particular Environmental Stewardship.